Gaffer Twist

Lance Mannion (via Avedon's Sideshow, where I discovered that a blog on her blogroll that I click maybe twice a year is now a Japanese porn site) on Social Security:

But the larger plan was to put a program in place to be built on and expanded so that---and here was the crazy idea---nobody would have to work until they dropped or else face a cold and hungry and penurious old age.

The idea was that none of us should have to ask permission from the likes of Lloyd Blankfein to live past the age when we can push a mop or swing a shovel or load a truck, sew a stitch, drive a rivet, sweat pipe, bag groceries, flip burgers, gut fish, make beds, haul trash, dig coal, pick lettuce, or clean other people’s houses and raise their kids.

The idea was that it wasn’t the natural order of things that most people should break their backs, break their hearts, and have their spirits broken working all their lives to make a few people rich.

The idea was that there ought to be more to life than toil and sorrow and that at some point everybody should be able to lay down their tools and enjoy a few years of rest in comfort and security before they die.

(Leaving aside that it was also carefully designed to exclude domestic workers originally.)

That's why we need to ensure that no cuts are made.  The odds are that you will get old and Wall Street is a crapshoot.  Really, the 19th and early 20th centuries were not good places to live.